Andrew Joon Choi makes his central Illinois debut on April 15 for the first of two upcoming engagements with the Illinois Symphony Orchestra. Choi typically splits his time between Princeton, New Jersey, and Zurich, Switzerland, where he runs a nonprofit aimed at lowering barriers to opera.
Saturday’s small-format chamber concert, called “Inspiring Influences,” tees up Choi’s return this May, when he’ll lead the full orchestra in its season finale.
For now, Choi teams up with a curated slice of the symphony for a triptych of works: Takashi Yoshimatsu’s “Atom Hearts Club Suite No. 2;” André Jolivet’s “Concerto for Flute and Orchestra,” with Illinois Symphony principal flute Kimberly Risinger as the soloist; and Beethoven’s “Serioso” String Quartet No. 11, arranged by Gustav Mahler.
The thing tying these works together—which represent an array of time periods, aesthetics and geographies—is their composers’ propensity for leaning into a variety of cultural and tonal influences. By extension, “Inspiring Influences” poses probative questions about imitation, appreciation and appropriation.
The program was developed by former ISO music director Ken Lam, but as a flutist himself, Choi was especially drawn to the Jolivet.
“Jolivet always has referred to flute as an instrument with a breath of life,” Choi said. “Of course, it’s a wind instrument, so you have to breathe. This kind of seems like the most natural thing, but maybe not.”
Though flute is Choi’s primary instrument, he feels more comfortable at the podium.
“I’ve always been really fascinated by harmonies and the gathering of multiple instruments,” he said. “Whenever I was playing the flute, I would also be studying the participating instruments of the piano or the orchestra—much more than the flute itself, to be honest … But in terms of my relationship with the soloist—in this fortunate case to be Kim (Risinger)—I can feel her breath and her sound, and then we’re able to bring together a very beautiful interpretation.”
Jolivet is said to have been influenced by Japanese music in writing the 1949 concerto. Choi suggests Jolivet’s influences spanned the globe; he folded in tonal and rhythmic nuances seen across Africa and Asia to shake free from European norms, which could raise eyebrows on the topic of cultural appropriation.
“I don’t know, actually, where to draw the line,” Choi said. “All I can say is that, to him, it’s something that meshed inside of him as an artist and then he just kind of took everything in.”
How, then, to perceive Gustav Mahler’s arrangement of Beethoven’s “Serioso?” Choi said Mahler was harshly criticized by an anti-Semitic Viennese press; the Jewish composer even converted to Catholicism to secure a job in the Viennese court.
“Mahler had great reverence for Beethoven,” Choi said. “In the end, as human beings, you would be able to feel when something was disingenuous. If it came from a humanist stance of curiosity, I think that will inevitably touch people in a different way.”
Re-orchestrating other composers’ work was a fairly common practice of the period, similar in some ways to jazz and other forms relying on imitation and improvisation. Choi draws that comparative line directly to Yoshimatsu’s “Atom Hearts Club” suite, a symphonic remix of the Beatle's "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band" and Pink Floyd's "Atom Heart Mother," among other influences.
The living composer Yoshimatsu did not have formal music training; he studied engineering prior to taking up composing. His dual fascinations with classical greats like Beethoven and progressive rock bands like Pink Floyd and Emerson, Lake & Palmer coalesce in what is considered a radically tonal, neo-romantic style of music.
“Yoshimatsu is one of the contemporary composers who turned away from atonality that’s now established as the mainstream language of contemporary music,” Choi said.
“Inspiring Influences,” with the Illinois Symphony conducted by Andrew Joon Choi, takes place April 15 at Second Presbyterian Church, 404 N. Prairie St. in Bloomington. Tickets are $23.50 at ilsymphony.org.
